On the Relationship Between Science and Religion

Theory, Measurement, and Early Evidence for the Psychological Mechanism

Dissertation Defense

Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Rizqy Amelia Zein

Theoretical Background

  • Barbour (1966, 1998, 2000, 2002) proposes that people can perceive science (S) and religion (R) as:
    • Conflict: inherently incompatible, thus cannot mentally coexist.
    • Independence: non-overlapping domains (Gould, 1999).
    • Dialogue: distinct but incomplete without each other.
    • Integration: a unified belief system with no distinction.
  • Assumptions: (1) one cannot fit people neatly into one category and (2) the taxonomy is situation-dependent (Barbour, 2002).
  • Perceptions of the relationship between S and R are mental schemas that represent how these domains relate and guide interpretation of potentially competing S and R explanations.
  • I will refer to this construct as ‘mental models’.

Research Questions

Does Barbour’s taxonomy exist in reality? If so, why do people differ in their mental models?

The goal is to illustrate the underlying psychological mechanisms responsible for the formation of the mental models.

Pillar 1: Theory

If it exists, how can one systematically operationalize it for empirical research?

The goal is to quantify qualitative distinctions of the mental models.

Pillar 2: Measure

Then, what does it predict?

The goal is to investigate whether the mental models can predict how people evaluate the utility of specific scientific and religious explanations.

Pillar 3: Mechanistic Testing

Manuscript 1: Theory

Does Barbour’s taxonomy exist in reality? If so, why do people differ in their mental models?

Some Insights

Is the taxonomy real?

  • There is handful of evidence from qualitative studies.
  • Mental models have different names, but the most straightforward are suggested by Yasri et al (2013), which are Conflict, Compartment (= Independence), Complementary (= Dialogue) and Consonance (= Integration).
  • Context-Switch is an addition, which represents a pragmatic strategy of an underlying conflict belief by flexibly switching between S and R depending on the social situations.

Why people differ?

  • Cognitive elements: cognitive flexibility, epistemic belief.
  • Motivational elements: social identity, political ideology, moral belief, epistemic needs and motives.
  • Differences in cognitive and motivational elements pave the way for explanatory coexistence (Legare et al., 2012; Legare & Visala, 2011).
  • Explanatory coexistence occurs because people use S and R for different purposes (Davoodi & Lombrozo, 2022).
  • S and R are processed differently (Van Leeuwen, 2014).

Manuscript 1: Conclusion

In order to hold “non-conflict” beliefs (i.e., compartment, complementary, and consonance), individuals should be cognitively flexible and motivated to reconcile; otherwise, they adopt “conflict” beliefs (i.e, conflict & context-switch)

Manuscript 2: Measurement

How can one systematically operationalize Barbour’s taxonomy for empirical research?

Rationale & Design

  • Barbour introduces a taxonomy, but he cautions not to use it for categorizing people (2002).
  • As a workaround, we assume that mental models do not only differ in their kind but also in their degree of conflict compatibility.

Rationale & Design

  • Barbour introduces a taxonomy, but he cautions not to use it for categorizing people (2002).
  • As a workaround, we assume that mental models do not only differ in their kind but also in their degree of conflict compatibility.
  • To test Barbour’s claims, we developed a novel measure that mirrors theoretical and empirical descriptions of each mental model.
  • We performed one pilot and two studies across three (N = 2,920) and one sample (N = 1,197).
  • Since mental models are culturally embedded (Johnson, et al., 2020; Rios & Aveyard, 2019; Rios & Roth, 2020), we performed a differential item functioning (DIF) analysis.
  • Discriminant (vs. Belief in Science, Farias et al., 2013), convergent (vs. Leicht et al., 2021), and criterion-related validity were also tested.

Results

  • As expected, scale data in four samples showed that the construct is unidimensional and bipolar.

Results

  • As expected, scale data in four samples showed that the construct is unidimensional and bipolar.
    • ..but the Context-Switch was closer to compatibility than conflict.
  • participants perceived more conflict than with the same trait level by ~0.4SD.
  • The construct was empirically distinct from Belief in Science (Farias et al., 2013) (\(\rho^2\) = .46 , .25 ) and similar to Leicht et al.’s (2021) scale (\(\rho^2\) = .57 , .54 ), but substantial unshared variance still left.
  • Religious participants who have a stronger religious identity and were brought up in a religious family tend to perceive higher compatibility, both in and samples.
  • Moderate correlations were found between self-identification with atheism (both in and ) and science (only ) with higher conflict perception.
  • A very small correlation was found between identifying as agnostic with perceptions of conflict/compatibility perceptions, both in and samples.

Manuscript 2: Conclusion

Perceptions of the relationship between S and R are unidimensional, bipolar construct, with mental models representing certain regions along this continuum.

Manuscript : Mechanistic Testing

What does having different mental models predict?

Rationale & Theory

Goal System Theory (GST)

  • S and R are means to achieve epistemic goals (i.e., “to explain why things happen”).
  • Presenting scientific and religious explanations together (as multiple means) leads to reduced perceived utility of both compared to presenting them alone, or the dilution effect (Jackson et al., 2024; Kruglanski et al., 2011).
  • GST predicts that: the number of available explanations determines how epistemically valuable people perceive these explanations to be.

Motivated Reasoning

  • People engage in biased reasoning, preferring explanations that are consistent with their prior beliefs (Kunda, 1990).
  • Motivated reasoning predicts that:
    • Moderate reliance on both S and R reflects underlying non-conflict beliefs (i.e., compartment, context-switch, complementary, and consonance).
    • High reliance on either S or R reflects an underlying conflict belief.

Design

  • A within-subject experiment (N = 719)
  • Participants were randomly presented with one (scientific or religious), two (always one scientific and one religious), and four (always two scientific and two religious) of three existential-related incidents: flood, war, and climate crisis.
  • Then, we asked participants to rate each explanation presented to them for their epistemic utility, and measured their perceptions of the relationship between S and R, and religiosity.

Results

  • No main effect of number of explanation (1 vs. 2 vs. 4) and no interaction effect between number of explanation and type of explanation (S vs. R).
  • Conflict believers rated religious explanations as less useful than non-conflict believers (d = -0.71).
  • Scientific explanations were rated consistently regardless of whether participants believed in a conflict or non-conflict (d = 0.001).
  • Non-religious rated religious explanations as less useful than religious participants (d = -1.02).
  • Scientific explanations were rated similarly regardless of participants’ religiosity (d = 0.09).

Manuscript 3: Conclusion

Perceptions of the relationship between S and R predict how individuals evaluate the utility of religious explanations, but not scientific explanations.

Some Takeaways

Conclusion
  • People’s perceptions on the relationship between S and R emerge through identifiable cognitive and motivational processes.
  • These perceptions are mapped on to different regions of a unidimensional, bipolar construct, that is culturally embedded.
    • Context-Switch is closer to compatibility than conflict, different from what was initially suspected.
  • This general perception of the relationship between S and R only predicts how people evaluate the utility of religious explanations, but not scientific explanations.
Contributions
  • Offering a systematic operationalization of Barbour’s taxonomy.
  • Providing an integrative, yet descriptive, psychological mechanism underlying the mental models and early evidence for what they predict.
Limitations
  • No examination of boundary conditions, may be possible with computational modelling.
  • Only focused on the general perceptions – did not tap into domain/issue/topic-specific perceptions.

Thank you 🙏

Project Supported by:

References

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List of Appendices (1 & 2)

Manuscript 1

Manuscript 2

Manuscript 2

List of Appendices (3)

Manuscript 3

Original Flowchart

Revised Flowchart

Qualitative Studies Barbour’s Taxonomy

Learning Sciences

Basel, Harms, Prechtl, Weiß, & Rothgangel (2014); Borgerding, Deniz, & Anderson (2017); Dodick, Dayan, & Orion (2010); Fysh & Lucas (1998); Hokayem & BouJaoude (2008); Mansour (2011); Mansour (2015); Pearce, Stones, Reiss, & Mujtaba (2021); Scheitle (2011); Shipman, Brickhouse, Dagher, & Letts (2002); Stones, Pearce, Reiss, & Mujtaba (2020); Taber, Billingsley, Riga, & Newdick (2011); Taşkın (2014); Yasri & Mancy (2012); Yasri & Mancy (2016); Alanazi (2025); Fahrurrosi, Sholihah, Hamid, Fadhilah, & Marzuki (2025); Riwanda, Abdurrohim, Widiyati, & Pranajaya (2025); Woolley et al. (2023)

Sociology, Religious Studies

Baker (2012); Ecklund, Park, & Sorrell (2011); Ecklund & Park (2009); Elsdon-Baker (2015); Hanley, Bennett, & Ratcliffe (2014); Hill, Jones, Kaden, & Catto (2019); Kaden (2025); Konnemann, Asshoff, & Hammann (2016); Longest & Uecker (2021); Scheitle & Corcoran (2021); Vaidyanathan, Johnson, Prickett, & Howard Ecklund (2016)

Scale Items

Leicht et al (2021)

Correlation Table Study 2 DE

Correlation Table Study 2 USA

Model Fit Pilot + Study 1

Model Fit Study 2

Item Location Study 2

ESSD Study 2

PCA Plot Pilot (DE)

PCA Plot Study 1 (DE)

PCA Plot Study 2 (DE & USA)

Identity Scale

Interrater

Goal: Asking raters to predict item locations

N = 8, ICC2k = 0.94, 95% CI [0.90, 0.97], F(26, 182) = 18, p < .001

Item Response Function (IRF)

Item Information Curve (IIC)

Expected Item Score DIF

Expected Test Score DIF

Scale Perceived Utility

Correlation Table

Model Parameter number * type * conflict

Simple Simple Effects number * type * conflict

Plot number * type * conflict

Model Parameter number * type * religiosity

Simple Simple Effects number * type * religiosity

Plot number * type * religiosity

COR 1

COR 2

COR 3

COR 4